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Because it's a horrible company. Try reading this http://web.archive.org/web/20110519051938/http://msversus.org/

And that archive doesn't contain newer crimes such as ooxml and uefi. You can read about those here, respectively http://www.noooxml.org/ and http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/

FUCK MICRO$OFT!

But as we've seen over the last 10 years, MS has gotten very, very careful about not treading into areas that could open up a new round of such suits, and very subtle in their anti-competitive behavior so as not to draw attention from the DoJ.

Live in a cave dude? Check out http://www.noooxml.org/

It must be said, though, that MS Office always offered a plain text format (RTF) so the migration path was always there. Newer formats are zipped XML [guardian.co.uk], so the point is largely moot.

Oh wow.

I'm sorry, I don't have time to give this the treatment it deserves, so I'll have to direct you to here for a start:

Microsoft Open Office XML has 6000 pages of documentation, still professionals need better documentation. Open Office XML is the largest standard that was ever put under ISO fast-track procedures.

The large amount of comments filed by national standard bodies indicates that ECMA did no proper review of the standard proposal. No one printed them yet. However the dispositions for the comments provided by ECMA for the BRM comprise another 2300 pages of bugfixes and deprecated functionality

Yeah. So XML is great, once I read the six thousand page spec. Why is this better than a binary format again? Having an open spec is helpful, but forget about open implementations -- IIRC, even Office itself isn't compliant, which causes even more problems given that if someone else, by some miracle, implements the spec properly, they still can't interoperate.

By contrast, while OpenOffice is kind of big and bloated, ODF does have multiple independent implementations, and they do seem to work reasonably well. Even if this wasn't the case, at least you don't have the problem where a bit of functionality is deliberately left unspecified -- large chunks of the OOXML format will mention something (a tag, say) and then declare its actual behavior to be "beyond the scope of this document" or "implementation-defined".

The same is true of RTF, by the way -- while normal .doc documents have enough issues between versions of Word (often OpenOffice does a better job of opening old ones), RTF does much worse. And if Office can't keep it straight, how is anyone else supposed to get it approximately right?

I don't know that I'd suggest a business keep their data in ODF, either, but it's a hell of a lot better than OOXML as far as having actual migration paths and being reasonable for third-party software to read and manipulate. The last time I actually tried working with this stuff (just extracting stuff from MS Office and converting it to more-reasonable HTML), I tried parsing the OOXML, only to realize that it was suicide without a library, no matter how small the data I needed was. Switched to ODF and it was still a project, but I could actually read the document and figure out what was going on, without having to read the spec.

But yeah, "It's zipped XML, therefore it has a migration path!" May as well say, "It's stored in bytes, therefore it has a migration path!"

The requirement is "read and write". There's nothing available at the moment. And ISO is a fucking joke. http://noooxml.org/

Has an AC ever spoken truer words? Looks like Aussies just locked themselves out from all existing software products. Nice one.

I still simply cannot believe that ISO made the move and standardized OOXML and instantly lost all credibility with computer oriented people, at least all people who know how the process was carried out. I'm sure that includes also people in favor of OOXML, if any. Standards are supposed to be accepted on grounds of technical excellence and financial benefit to the global community.

http://www.noooxml.org/

ECMA, you mean the Oooopen XML ISO fast-track scam machine "ECMA International".

Why don't they publish the specification on their servers down in Redmond instead? Do the standard developers have a girl friend in Geneva? Or do they think it is more fun with free beer parties with Mozilla?

And finally, what has the current hugging to do with what goes on in Brussels?

DocX? The one and only Open XML.

Actually, I cleaned up the mechanical translation after if was first posted here; http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-93970/norwegians-leave-their-standards-body-in-protest The mechanical translation was pretty good, but still needed 15 minutes of editing.

Correct NoOOXML link. This was one of the first and best of the bunch.

See NoOOXML, OpenDot, NoOOXML">Boycott Novell and Groklaw for better analysis. People are very angry about this and they should be.

The 900 million euros was for manipulating the server operating system market to disenfranchise competitors. Microsoft refused to change and got fined for the refusal. The matter is over (bar the appeal of the amount).

Microsoft is currently being investigated:

• - for not using standard html/css in its web browsers forcing every other browser maker to produce a quirks mode so that MS-HTML oriented websites are visible. Complaint made by Opera - Quite right as far as I'm concerned.
  
  
• - for manipulating its monopoly in the Office arena. Refusing to implement international standards (ODF, MathML, SVG, HTML (properly) into there product so that no-one can compete on features. At the same time patenting the proprietary features so that no-one can re-implement them. They also use some unusual tactics* to get OOXML through so that government's can pass using Microsoft Office as in there due-diligence for procurement.

* There a huge list.. but my personal favourite was sending regional MS employees as delegates for war-torn African nations, all in order to pass the vote.

Since this product isn't available for my operating system, I can't check it our for myself, but I do hope it encourages interest in astronomy. There are valid reasons to bash Microsoft (the OOXML debacle, for example). Putting out a free-as-in-beer science project for their customers only isn't one of them. If some of Microsoft's customers get to learn more about the sky, that's a good thing. I hope they enjoy it.

Did you read this?

or this

According to THIS interpretation of events, Microsoft basically owns how ISO will deal with ISO/IEC 29500. SC34 is under the control of ECMA... we know who is in control of ECMA.

Norway, Germany, Poland Romania and many others are reporting irregularities and stacking in their committees. The memo from Comes v Microsoft [pdf warning] describes pretty excatly what happened in those meetings.

Considerable poltiical influence was brought to bear too. Bill Gates campaigned in Denmark, where he is a friend of the Prime Minister. Sarkozy himself intervened on Microsoft's behalf in France.

This topic has started to expose just how much influence Microsoft has with governments, and shows they're willing to meddle with national sovereignty.

It's not going to take too much to turn it into a cause celebre.

If you want to see how bad was this process handled, see one of its awfuls deliverables.

Open the document "Response_DE-0028_dates_v9.doc" in this zip

http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/open/0989_reference_docs.zip

This is one of the changes frenetically accepted in BRM, regarding treatments of dates in OOXML. See the salad of colors trying to explain the modifications. And this is a fix ( BRM ) of a fix ( one of ECMA 1027 proposed fixes ) of a NB comment of a draft text ( original ECMA submission ).

And this document contradicts this another BRM document: http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/open/0989.pdf because the first says that the .DOC file replaces ECMA responses 18 and 43 but the "Response_DE-0028_dates_v9.doc" document says that it replaces ECMA responses 18, 43, 76 and 690 !

ECMA and Microsoft have not provided a final text with all this changes applied. In the BRM they frenetically changed Scope, Conformance , Schemas , and lot of normative text. Microsoft is now rushing to get a final text in less than one month, to comply with ISO normative.

This is how ISO delivers IT international standards, mandating fundamental changes to drafts, leaving national bodies with the only alternative to cast a political vote leaving aside the technical content of the specification.

Congratulations to the countries that had *balls* and didn't agree with this way of deliver standards to people:

• New Zealand ( dissaproved )
• Brasil ( dissaproved )
• India ( dissaproved )
• China ( dissaproved )
• South Africa ( dissaproved )
• Canada ( dissaproved )
• Venezuela ( dissaproved )
• Ecuador ( dissaproved )
• Iran ( dissaproved )
• Italy ( abstained )
• Spain ( abstained )
• Belgium ( abstained )
• Netherlands ( abstained but only Microsoft opposed the disapproval )
• France ( abstained due to heavy Microsoft pressure )
• Malaysia ( abstained due to heavy Microsoft pressure )
• Australia ( abstained due to heavy Microsoft pressure, government opposed OOXML )
• Kenya ( abstained )

And congratulations Microsoft, your friendly little countries supposedly experts in XML document description languages ;-) ( now ISO P-members ), who joined ISO JTC1 just to cast an unconditional-yes-votes payed off:

• Jamaica
• Cyprus
• Malta
• Kazakhstan
• Lebanon
• Azerbaijan
• Cote-d'Ivore
• Pakistan

Irregularities and political decisions in ISO DIS 29500 March 2008 votes:

Germany

In a steering committee of 20 people a vote was taken to answer this question: "did the process run according to the rules and without irregularities?"

6 answered no and 7 abstained!

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2008032913190768

Norway

21 members of the committee voted NO to fast-track this DIS but it was decided to vote yes anyway.

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-50031/oil-fire-in-norway-microsoft-buys-another-standards-body

Denmark

The technical committee didn't agree to change the disapproval vote but it was "decided" to vote yes anyway.

The committee S-142/U-34 under Danish Standards could not agree to change their vote from No to Yes.

A couple of hours later:

http://www.version2.dk/artikel/6718 says that the announcement from Danish Standards will not be made until Friday and that the Chair of the committee has been barred from speaking about the result of yesterday's meeting.

After some Microsoft political intervention to revert this ( the Prime Minister of Denmark is a Microsoft friend ), we have this: http://www.en.ds.dk/4227

Another political decision, influenced by Microsoft lobbyists.

Malaysia

The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation decided on Malaysia's final position on OOXML ("abstain" ), overturning the 81% "Disapprove" position by ISC-G and TC4.

http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/the-minister-of.html http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/malaysian-indus.html

Poland

On March 20, 2008, Technical Committee (KT 182) of PKN was supposed to either accept the recommendation (which was to vote YES for the proposed standard) or not accept it, and thus recommend PKN to vote NO or abstain from voting. Of 45 members, 24 appeared on the meeting. And the votes looked like this:

• 12 votes supporting the reccomendation,
• 10 votes rejecting it,
• 2 abstaining to vote.

No consensus has been achieved concerning the recommendation. Thus, the chairman of KT 182, Elzbieta Andrukiewicz, decided to allow the missing members to vote by e-mail during the next 10 days (till the end of March).

The email vote was taken, counting a "no mail sended" as an "approval" !!!

Clearly, there was no technical consensus in Poland, but the chairman forced the rules to favour an approval.

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwoman-distributes-microsoft-propaganda http://polishlinux.org/poland/possible-manipulation-around-ooxml-process-in-poland/ http://polishlinux.org/poland/poland-confirms-its-approval-for-ooxml-in-iso/

Croatia

Out of 35 members of TO Z1, 17 sent a vote, and there were three votes for, and fourteen against fast-tracking OOXML, which is relative rejection rate of 82%. Members who voted were individual experts, IBM, CLUG and HrOpen. However, since there were less than 51% of votes, the voting process was declared invalid, and the previous vote holds ( "approve" ) !

M

Irregularities and political decisions in ISO DIS 29500 March 2008 votes:

Germany

In a steering committee of 20 people a vote was taken to answer this question: "did the process run according to the rules and without irregularities?"

6 answered no and 7 abstained!

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2008032913190768

Norway

21 members of the committee voted NO to fast-track this DIS but it was decided to vote yes anyway.

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-50031/oil-fire-in-norway-microsoft-buys-another-standards-body

Denmark

The technical committee didn't agree to change the disapproval vote but it was "decided" to vote yes anyway.

The committee S-142/U-34 under Danish Standards could not agree to change their vote from No to Yes.

A couple of hours later:

http://www.version2.dk/artikel/6718 says that the announcement from Danish Standards will not be made until Friday and that the Chair of the committee has been barred from speaking about the result of yesterday's meeting.

After some Microsoft political intervention to revert this ( the Prime Minister of Denmark is a Microsoft friend ), we have this: http://www.en.ds.dk/4227

Another political decision, influenced by Microsoft lobbyists.

Malaysia

The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation decided on Malaysia's final position on OOXML ("abstain" ), overturning the 81% "Disapprove" position by ISC-G and TC4.

http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/the-minister-of.html http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/malaysian-indus.html

Poland

On March 20, 2008, Technical Committee (KT 182) of PKN was supposed to either accept the recommendation (which was to vote YES for the proposed standard) or not accept it, and thus recommend PKN to vote NO or abstain from voting. Of 45 members, 24 appeared on the meeting. And the votes looked like this:

• 12 votes supporting the reccomendation,
• 10 votes rejecting it,
• 2 abstaining to vote.

No consensus has been achieved concerning the recommendation. Thus, the chairman of KT 182, Elzbieta Andrukiewicz, decided to allow the missing members to vote by e-mail during the next 10 days (till the end of March).

The email vote was taken, counting a "no mail sended" as an "approval" !!!

Clearly, there was no technical consensus in Poland, but the chairman forced the rules to favour an approval.

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwoman-distributes-microsoft-propaganda http://polishlinux.org/poland/possible-manipulation-around-ooxml-process-in-poland/ http://polishlinux.org/poland/poland-confirms-its-approval-for-ooxml-in-iso/

Croatia

Out of 35 members of TO Z1, 17 sent a vote, and there were three votes for, and fourteen against fast-tracking OOXML, which is relative rejection rate of 82%. Members who voted were individual experts, IBM, CLUG and HrOpen. However, since there were less than 51% of votes, the voting process was declared invalid, and the previous vote holds ( "approve" ) !

M

Irregularities and political decisions in ISO DIS 29500 March 2008 votes:

Germany

In a steering committee of 20 people a vote was taken to answer this question: "did the process run according to the rules and without irregularities?"

6 answered no and 7 abstained!

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2008032913190768

Norway

21 members of the committee voted NO to fast-track this DIS but it was decided to vote yes anyway.

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-50031/oil-fire-in-norway-microsoft-buys-another-standards-body

Denmark

The technical committee didn't agree to change the disapproval vote but it was "decided" to vote yes anyway.

The committee S-142/U-34 under Danish Standards could not agree to change their vote from No to Yes.

A couple of hours later:

http://www.version2.dk/artikel/6718 says that the announcement from Danish Standards will not be made until Friday and that the Chair of the committee has been barred from speaking about the result of yesterday's meeting.

After some Microsoft political intervention to revert this ( the Prime Minister of Denmark is a Microsoft friend ), we have this: http://www.en.ds.dk/4227

Another political decision, influenced by Microsoft lobbyists.

Malaysia

The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation decided on Malaysia's final position on OOXML ("abstain" ), overturning the 81% "Disapprove" position by ISC-G and TC4.

http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/the-minister-of.html http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/malaysian-indus.html

Poland

On March 20, 2008, Technical Committee (KT 182) of PKN was supposed to either accept the recommendation (which was to vote YES for the proposed standard) or not accept it, and thus recommend PKN to vote NO or abstain from voting. Of 45 members, 24 appeared on the meeting. And the votes looked like this:

• 12 votes supporting the reccomendation,
• 10 votes rejecting it,
• 2 abstaining to vote.

No consensus has been achieved concerning the recommendation. Thus, the chairman of KT 182, Elzbieta Andrukiewicz, decided to allow the missing members to vote by e-mail during the next 10 days (till the end of March).

The email vote was taken, counting a "no mail sended" as an "approval" !!!

Clearly, there was no technical consensus in Poland, but the chairman forced the rules to favour an approval.

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwoman-distributes-microsoft-propaganda http://polishlinux.org/poland/possible-manipulation-around-ooxml-process-in-poland/ http://polishlinux.org/poland/poland-confirms-its-approval-for-ooxml-in-iso/

Croatia

Out of 35 members of TO Z1, 17 sent a vote, and there were three votes for, and fourteen against fast-tracking OOXML, which is relative rejection rate of 82%. Members who voted were individual experts, IBM, CLUG and HrOpen. However, since there were less than 51% of votes, the voting process was declared invalid, and the previous vote holds ( "approve" ) !

M

20 good reasons to disapprove OOXML

1. ISO's "Fast Track" process was abused for standard development 'on the fly'. In the past ECMA has "fast tracked" small (50-500 page), mature and industry accepted standards. OOXML is large (6000+ pages) and immature. An editorial of Redmond Developer News described: "By contrast [to ISO 26300], the Microsoft OOXML specification takes what might be called a kitchen sink approach." -- an ISO process is not thought to become a kitchen sink for half-baked ECMA standards. OOXML was only released in 2006 and is hardly accepted by the industry. The OOXML community around the format is a community of one. All third party supporters have contractual relations with the vendor. The limitations of the "Fast Track" process; fast evaluation time frames, extremely limited time to resolve all the concerns and little room for modification has demonstrated that the "Fast Track" process was unsuitable for OOXML. It gives us little surprise as the process was never intended for standard development.
2. OOXML is a proposed parallel standard without a justification. No empirical evidence was provided for the assertion that OOXML faithfully represents the corpus of existing documents of a specific vendor as opposed to the existing ISO standard or customized versions thereof. ECMA's branding of the format as a silver bullet for archiving cannot be tested by NBs. Additionally ECMA failed to provide a mapping between the legacy binary formats and OOXML. The binary legacy specifications was only made public in 2008. Multiple standards for the very same purpose with conversion issues undermine the respect for ISO standardization. You need a consistent justification to adopt another ISO standard for the same field which is not build upon an existing ISO standard - not to mention backwards compatibility to ISO 26300 architecture.
3. OOXML's ISO agenda is to undermine the adoption of the existing ISO Office standard. OOXML evangelist Mahugh explained: "When ODF was made an ISO standard, Microsoft had to react quickly as certain governments have procurement policies which prefer ISO standards. ... Microsoft therefore had to rush this standard through. Its a simple matter of commercial interests!" A disapproval would motivate the submitter to contribute to the existing ISO Office format, ODF (ISO 26300). We find historical precedence for a proposed Microsoft standard being disapproved in order to constructively motivate harmonization of standards: the Microsoft VML and W3C SVG standards. Microsoft's VML was rejected at the W3C in favour in Adobe's SVG. Microsoft's response was to join the W3C working group to improve SVG which later became a W3C standard. To the extent that SVG is incorporated into ISO/IEC:26300 SVG is an official ISO/IEC/ITTF international standard.
4. OOXML is incompatible with ISO/IEC and WTO Technical Barrier to Trade (TBT) basic principles, which ISO/IEC are supposed to respect. The BRM added the notion of "Microsoft Office 97 to Microsoft Office 2008 inclusive" to which products' formats a 'faithful representation' is sought by the proposed ISO standard. International standards are not permitted to discriminate specific vendors positively, and thus all competitors negatively. The standard would become a technical market barrier, a tool of unfair competition. Formally a standard is supposed to avoid referencing products. Non-compliance with WTO requirements on technical barriers to trade due to formalities will be an obstacle for the adoption of OOXML in the public sector and undermine trust in the ISO label.
5. The BRM heavily amended those ECMA 'dispositions of comments' it had time to discuss. The BRM only discussed about 10% of the known technical issues. Of 54 non-editorial issues covered in detail, 48 were modified at the BRM. This left 850 issues without check-over, and pushed through by a bulk vote. These

http://www.noooxml.org/open:rejectooxmlnow/

^ Some reasons

I myself am no critical analyzer of standards, but the fact that the standard will still have a microsoft copyright on it is enough for me to say no. If, let's say, it was adobe instead of microsoft (and isn't pdf, for there are opensource implementations of pdf), I would still have the same viewpoint.

Standards shouldn't have disclosed code in, which is why I believe if something like a document format is standardized, the source code should be open to all.

If I am wrong about OOXML in that way, someone correct me.

NoOOXML.org has an english story about the vote in Germany: http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din

In addition to being unable to vote "no", some people changed their vote under pressure from "abstain" to "abstain to the DIN vote".
This way, the final DIN vote resulted in a "yes".

0) Bill Gates contacted the president of Mexico and ask to approve ms-ooxml
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327104739103

1) Finland change is vote from Abstention to Yes without voting
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20080327104739103&title=Finland+Changes+Vote+to+%26quot%3BYes%26quot%3B+after+Questionable+%26quot%3BConsensus%26quot%3B&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=682930#c682940

2) Polish NB Chairwoman has changed the voting rules for the email ballot to "If you don't vote, it is counted as a YES", and she has threatened to sue committee members if they spread accusations
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwomen-distributes-microsoft-propaganda

3) Romania voted Yes. There is strong suspicion of ballot-stuffing and the Romanian Standardization Organization has so far refused to offer any information other than the vote distribution.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49319/romania-votes-yes-again-ballot-stuffing-lack-of-transparencyro
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-47722/last-minute-committee-stuffing-in-romania

4) Cuba voted No in September but that its vote was counted as Yes
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324121844682

5) Brazilian representative alleges that he believes Microsoft has itself violated the "Law of Silence". It relates to Microsoft's claim that 98% of issues were resolved at the meeting, which he says is inaccurate, but his question relates to why Microsoft can talk about the BRM and no one else can. The Brazilian delegate has written to ITTF
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324220213437

6) Belgium: Yes man invade Technical Committee
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48345/belgium-also-stuffed-with-microsoft-business-partners

7) Pakistan and Egypt stuffed?
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48053/pakistan-and-egypt-stuffed

8) USA: The Yes men are back for voting in the United States. OOXML was adopted 17 votes against 4, thanks to Microsoft and their 11 Business Partners.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-46044/committee-stuffing-also-in-the-united-states:11-microsoft-business-partners

9) German vote Yes: only Yes and Abstain vote admitted. Without very strong pressure from Microsoft Germany would have voted "ABSTAIN", with 9 to 8.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327231223154
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din

10) Sweden: the vote is annulled because one member vote two times. No new vote will be cast because there are no time for a new vote (sorry no-link)

11) ISO has violated WTO rules accepting ms-ooxml as possible standard. Tineke Egyedi, president of the European Academy for Standardisation, is critical of OOXML being

0) Bill Gates contacted the president of Mexico and ask to approve ms-ooxml
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327104739103

1) Finland change is vote from Abstention to Yes without voting
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20080327104739103&title=Finland+Changes+Vote+to+%26quot%3BYes%26quot%3B+after+Questionable+%26quot%3BConsensus%26quot%3B&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=682930#c682940

2) Polish NB Chairwoman has changed the voting rules for the email ballot to "If you don't vote, it is counted as a YES", and she has threatened to sue committee members if they spread accusations
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwomen-distributes-microsoft-propaganda

3) Romania voted Yes. There is strong suspicion of ballot-stuffing and the Romanian Standardization Organization has so far refused to offer any information other than the vote distribution.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49319/romania-votes-yes-again-ballot-stuffing-lack-of-transparencyro
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-47722/last-minute-committee-stuffing-in-romania

4) Cuba voted No in September but that its vote was counted as Yes
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324121844682

5) Brazilian representative alleges that he believes Microsoft has itself violated the "Law of Silence". It relates to Microsoft's claim that 98% of issues were resolved at the meeting, which he says is inaccurate, but his question relates to why Microsoft can talk about the BRM and no one else can. The Brazilian delegate has written to ITTF
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324220213437

6) Belgium: Yes man invade Technical Committee
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48345/belgium-also-stuffed-with-microsoft-business-partners

7) Pakistan and Egypt stuffed?
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48053/pakistan-and-egypt-stuffed

8) USA: The Yes men are back for voting in the United States. OOXML was adopted 17 votes against 4, thanks to Microsoft and their 11 Business Partners.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-46044/committee-stuffing-also-in-the-united-states:11-microsoft-business-partners

9) German vote Yes: only Yes and Abstain vote admitted. Without very strong pressure from Microsoft Germany would have voted "ABSTAIN", with 9 to 8.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327231223154
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din

10) Sweden: the vote is annulled because one member vote two times. No new vote will be cast because there are no time for a new vote (sorry no-link)

11) ISO has violated WTO rules accepting ms-ooxml as possible standard. Tineke Egyedi, president of the European Academy for Standardisation, is critical of OOXML being

0) Bill Gates contacted the president of Mexico and ask to approve ms-ooxml
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327104739103

1) Finland change is vote from Abstention to Yes without voting
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20080327104739103&title=Finland+Changes+Vote+to+%26quot%3BYes%26quot%3B+after+Questionable+%26quot%3BConsensus%26quot%3B&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=682930#c682940

2) Polish NB Chairwoman has changed the voting rules for the email ballot to "If you don't vote, it is counted as a YES", and she has threatened to sue committee members if they spread accusations
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwomen-distributes-microsoft-propaganda

3) Romania voted Yes. There is strong suspicion of ballot-stuffing and the Romanian Standardization Organization has so far refused to offer any information other than the vote distribution.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49319/romania-votes-yes-again-ballot-stuffing-lack-of-transparencyro
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-47722/last-minute-committee-stuffing-in-romania

4) Cuba voted No in September but that its vote was counted as Yes
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324121844682

5) Brazilian representative alleges that he believes Microsoft has itself violated the "Law of Silence". It relates to Microsoft's claim that 98% of issues were resolved at the meeting, which he says is inaccurate, but his question relates to why Microsoft can talk about the BRM and no one else can. The Brazilian delegate has written to ITTF
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324220213437

6) Belgium: Yes man invade Technical Committee
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48345/belgium-also-stuffed-with-microsoft-business-partners

7) Pakistan and Egypt stuffed?
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48053/pakistan-and-egypt-stuffed

8) USA: The Yes men are back for voting in the United States. OOXML was adopted 17 votes against 4, thanks to Microsoft and their 11 Business Partners.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-46044/committee-stuffing-also-in-the-united-states:11-microsoft-business-partners

9) German vote Yes: only Yes and Abstain vote admitted. Without very strong pressure from Microsoft Germany would have voted "ABSTAIN", with 9 to 8.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327231223154
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din

10) Sweden: the vote is annulled because one member vote two times. No new vote will be cast because there are no time for a new vote (sorry no-link)

11) ISO has violated WTO rules accepting ms-ooxml as possible standard. Tineke Egyedi, president of the European Academy for Standardisation, is critical of OOXML being

0) Bill Gates contacted the president of Mexico and ask to approve ms-ooxml
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327104739103

1) Finland change is vote from Abstention to Yes without voting
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20080327104739103&title=Finland+Changes+Vote+to+%26quot%3BYes%26quot%3B+after+Questionable+%26quot%3BConsensus%26quot%3B&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=682930#c682940

2) Polish NB Chairwoman has changed the voting rules for the email ballot to "If you don't vote, it is counted as a YES", and she has threatened to sue committee members if they spread accusations
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwomen-distributes-microsoft-propaganda

3) Romania voted Yes. There is strong suspicion of ballot-stuffing and the Romanian Standardization Organization has so far refused to offer any information other than the vote distribution.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49319/romania-votes-yes-again-ballot-stuffing-lack-of-transparencyro
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-47722/last-minute-committee-stuffing-in-romania

4) Cuba voted No in September but that its vote was counted as Yes
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324121844682

5) Brazilian representative alleges that he believes Microsoft has itself violated the "Law of Silence". It relates to Microsoft's claim that 98% of issues were resolved at the meeting, which he says is inaccurate, but his question relates to why Microsoft can talk about the BRM and no one else can. The Brazilian delegate has written to ITTF
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324220213437

6) Belgium: Yes man invade Technical Committee
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48345/belgium-also-stuffed-with-microsoft-business-partners

7) Pakistan and Egypt stuffed?
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48053/pakistan-and-egypt-stuffed

8) USA: The Yes men are back for voting in the United States. OOXML was adopted 17 votes against 4, thanks to Microsoft and their 11 Business Partners.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-46044/committee-stuffing-also-in-the-united-states:11-microsoft-business-partners

9) German vote Yes: only Yes and Abstain vote admitted. Without very strong pressure from Microsoft Germany would have voted "ABSTAIN", with 9 to 8.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327231223154
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din

10) Sweden: the vote is annulled because one member vote two times. No new vote will be cast because there are no time for a new vote (sorry no-link)

11) ISO has violated WTO rules accepting ms-ooxml as possible standard. Tineke Egyedi, president of the European Academy for Standardisation, is critical of OOXML being

0) Bill Gates contacted the president of Mexico and ask to approve ms-ooxml
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327104739103

1) Finland change is vote from Abstention to Yes without voting
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20080327104739103&title=Finland+Changes+Vote+to+%26quot%3BYes%26quot%3B+after+Questionable+%26quot%3BConsensus%26quot%3B&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=682930#c682940

2) Polish NB Chairwoman has changed the voting rules for the email ballot to "If you don't vote, it is counted as a YES", and she has threatened to sue committee members if they spread accusations
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwomen-distributes-microsoft-propaganda

3) Romania voted Yes. There is strong suspicion of ballot-stuffing and the Romanian Standardization Organization has so far refused to offer any information other than the vote distribution.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49319/romania-votes-yes-again-ballot-stuffing-lack-of-transparencyro
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-47722/last-minute-committee-stuffing-in-romania

4) Cuba voted No in September but that its vote was counted as Yes
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324121844682

5) Brazilian representative alleges that he believes Microsoft has itself violated the "Law of Silence". It relates to Microsoft's claim that 98% of issues were resolved at the meeting, which he says is inaccurate, but his question relates to why Microsoft can talk about the BRM and no one else can. The Brazilian delegate has written to ITTF
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324220213437

6) Belgium: Yes man invade Technical Committee
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48345/belgium-also-stuffed-with-microsoft-business-partners

7) Pakistan and Egypt stuffed?
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48053/pakistan-and-egypt-stuffed

8) USA: The Yes men are back for voting in the United States. OOXML was adopted 17 votes against 4, thanks to Microsoft and their 11 Business Partners.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-46044/committee-stuffing-also-in-the-united-states:11-microsoft-business-partners

9) German vote Yes: only Yes and Abstain vote admitted. Without very strong pressure from Microsoft Germany would have voted "ABSTAIN", with 9 to 8.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327231223154
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din

10) Sweden: the vote is annulled because one member vote two times. No new vote will be cast because there are no time for a new vote (sorry no-link)

11) ISO has violated WTO rules accepting ms-ooxml as possible standard. Tineke Egyedi, president of the European Academy for Standardisation, is critical of OOXML being

0) Bill Gates contacted the president of Mexico and ask to approve ms-ooxml
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327104739103

1) Finland change is vote from Abstention to Yes without voting
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20080327104739103&title=Finland+Changes+Vote+to+%26quot%3BYes%26quot%3B+after+Questionable+%26quot%3BConsensus%26quot%3B&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=682930#c682940

2) Polish NB Chairwoman has changed the voting rules for the email ballot to "If you don't vote, it is counted as a YES", and she has threatened to sue committee members if they spread accusations
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwomen-distributes-microsoft-propaganda

3) Romania voted Yes. There is strong suspicion of ballot-stuffing and the Romanian Standardization Organization has so far refused to offer any information other than the vote distribution.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49319/romania-votes-yes-again-ballot-stuffing-lack-of-transparencyro
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-47722/last-minute-committee-stuffing-in-romania

4) Cuba voted No in September but that its vote was counted as Yes
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324121844682

5) Brazilian representative alleges that he believes Microsoft has itself violated the "Law of Silence". It relates to Microsoft's claim that 98% of issues were resolved at the meeting, which he says is inaccurate, but his question relates to why Microsoft can talk about the BRM and no one else can. The Brazilian delegate has written to ITTF
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324220213437

6) Belgium: Yes man invade Technical Committee
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48345/belgium-also-stuffed-with-microsoft-business-partners

7) Pakistan and Egypt stuffed?
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48053/pakistan-and-egypt-stuffed

8) USA: The Yes men are back for voting in the United States. OOXML was adopted 17 votes against 4, thanks to Microsoft and their 11 Business Partners.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-46044/committee-stuffing-also-in-the-united-states:11-microsoft-business-partners

9) German vote Yes: only Yes and Abstain vote admitted. Without very strong pressure from Microsoft Germany would have voted "ABSTAIN", with 9 to 8.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327231223154
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din

10) Sweden: the vote is annulled because one member vote two times. No new vote will be cast because there are no time for a new vote (sorry no-link)

11) ISO has violated WTO rules accepting ms-ooxml as possible standard. Tineke Egyedi, president of the European Academy for Standardisation, is critical of OOXML being

0) Bill Gates contacted the president of Mexico and ask to approve ms-ooxml
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327104739103

1) Finland change is vote from Abstention to Yes without voting
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20080327104739103&title=Finland+Changes+Vote+to+%26quot%3BYes%26quot%3B+after+Questionable+%26quot%3BConsensus%26quot%3B&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=682930#c682940

2) Polish NB Chairwoman has changed the voting rules for the email ballot to "If you don't vote, it is counted as a YES", and she has threatened to sue committee members if they spread accusations
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwomen-distributes-microsoft-propaganda

3) Romania voted Yes. There is strong suspicion of ballot-stuffing and the Romanian Standardization Organization has so far refused to offer any information other than the vote distribution.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49319/romania-votes-yes-again-ballot-stuffing-lack-of-transparencyro
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-47722/last-minute-committee-stuffing-in-romania

4) Cuba voted No in September but that its vote was counted as Yes
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324121844682

5) Brazilian representative alleges that he believes Microsoft has itself violated the "Law of Silence". It relates to Microsoft's claim that 98% of issues were resolved at the meeting, which he says is inaccurate, but his question relates to why Microsoft can talk about the BRM and no one else can. The Brazilian delegate has written to ITTF
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324220213437

6) Belgium: Yes man invade Technical Committee
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48345/belgium-also-stuffed-with-microsoft-business-partners

7) Pakistan and Egypt stuffed?
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48053/pakistan-and-egypt-stuffed

8) USA: The Yes men are back for voting in the United States. OOXML was adopted 17 votes against 4, thanks to Microsoft and their 11 Business Partners.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-46044/committee-stuffing-also-in-the-united-states:11-microsoft-business-partners

9) German vote Yes: only Yes and Abstain vote admitted. Without very strong pressure from Microsoft Germany would have voted "ABSTAIN", with 9 to 8.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327231223154
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din

10) Sweden: the vote is annulled because one member vote two times. No new vote will be cast because there are no time for a new vote (sorry no-link)

11) ISO has violated WTO rules accepting ms-ooxml as possible standard. Tineke Egyedi, president of the European Academy for Standardisation, is critical of OOXML being

NoOOXML.org has been actively reporting on the process and tracking irregularities since last June or so. The list is very long and we're still collecting information.

Try this site
http://www.noooxml.org/ballotresults

They ruin the US by wanting Disapproval but voting Approval. This will bring capitalism to its end. Mind Fucko!

Chavez' Venezuela on the other hand is not that cunning. They sell their standard snake oil to Microsoft and voted approval in the september ballot. I wonder what decision they will take this time...

India voting against OOXML is not news, they already voted against it in September.

The only news here is (possibly) the insight the article gives as to why and how India has been and will be voting against OOXML, therefore the "India Votes Against OOXML" title is really stupid.

Here's a little of what Jim Melton, the ISO SQL editor, had to say about the OOXML process:

You've written 6000 pages of specification largely in secret (and, I understand, recently added over 1500 more pages) and given the world five months to read, absorb, understand, review, critique, and establish informed positions on it. Worse, whether it happened because of unreasonable methods, pure random chance, or genuine and unexpected interest, the fact that the size of the JTC 1 Subcommittee that was to vote on the document suddenly exploded gives the appearance that somebody was trying too hard to stack the deck...almost as though it wasn't really desired to have too much real review.

BTW SQL was one of the largest ever ISO standards and took 20 years to debug. It was still smaller than OOXML.

And, Please sign the NoOOXML.org petition if you didn't already!

Here's a little of what Jim Melton, the ISO SQL editor, had to say about the OOXML process:

You've written 6000 pages of specification largely in secret (and, I understand, recently added over 1500 more pages) and given the world five months to read, absorb, understand, review, critique, and establish informed positions on it. Worse, whether it happened because of unreasonable methods, pure random chance, or genuine and unexpected interest, the fact that the size of the JTC 1 Subcommittee that was to vote on the document suddenly exploded gives the appearance that somebody was trying too hard to stack the deck...almost as though it wasn't really desired to have too much real review.

BTW SQL was one of the largest ever ISO standards and took 20 years to debug. It was still smaller than OOXML.

And, Please sign the NoOOXML.org petition if you didn't already!

As to the anti-OOXML side, I would recommend you look at: http://www.noooxml.org/ this site does an excellent job at detailing numerous flaws in the OOXML standard, and numerous irregularities in the ISO OOXML acceptance process.

But it is only fair to understand Microsoft's point of view as well: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/letters/ChrisCapOpenLetter.mspx

I have considered both viewpoints. IMO: the OOXML standard is just another msft scam. Msft is continuing to abuse its monopoloy position, and aggressively fighting to maintain and extend its monolopy position.

But, that is just my opinion. Please consider both sides of the arguement, and come to your own conclusions.

So what's the basis for this suggestion of bias?

Spend five minutes looking at the article and the page it's on. To his credit, it's not something he tries to hide.

Exhibit A: a link in his sidebar to an article which refers to OOXML as "the document format from Hell."

    Nah it's an open standard(for random definitions of open and standard) ...

    Writing a spec that says 'this portion should conform to Word97/03/xxx'
standards' is a bit lossy but whatteryagonnado.

http://www.noooxml.org/local--files/arguments/TheCaseAgainstOOXML.pdf

Belthize

Here is a list of NB with delegations at ISO http://www.noooxml.org/delegations

> http://www.noooxml.org/petition

I look at that domain name, and I can't help but read it as "donotwantxml.org".

They actually hold multiple patents (18 currently held, or pending) that apply to OOXML. My worst fear however, is that they'll maintain the format, and change it continually, not warning anyone when they're going to make a unilateral move. Leaving everyone else who wants to read documents sent to them in that format in the dark.

Petition currently running at noooxml.org

http://www.noooxml.org/petition

Are you trolling, a shill or stupid? Because there's nothing in ODF that is OpenOffice.org specific, but OOXML has many instances of "WrapLikeWord95" or similar intentional bugs (PDF link) peppered throughout their 6000 pages of tripe. Have you not been paying attention?

All this was done by IBM:

http://www.noooxml.org/irregularities

http://noooxml.org/

Interestingly, the Nooxml.org web site, which is dedicated to finding any and all OOXML conspiracies that seem to legimate the broken OOXML format seems to side with GNOME on this issue:
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-30201/the-linux-com-chat-files:jeff-waugh-on-poop-and-pita

Personally, I think that the only way ODF can become a universal file format is if it's possible to convert *all* formats (broken or not, Microsoft format or not) into ODF. Conversion from ODF into broken formats isn't required nor is round-trip conversion (If you have to round-trip for OOXML, use DOC which has almost universal reverse engineered support). The reason is simple. People currently have a lot of legacy out there and late ODF adopters will have a lot of OOXML legacy. Imagine you're early adopters with a lot of legacy (not necessarily DOC or OOXML) or late adopters with a lot of OOXML legacy. Without a way of escaping the legacy trap, you'll have no choice but to give up their terabytes of legacy or forever pay Microsoft to access their legacy and force people to live (for at least 10 years since many financial and health documents require at least this much retention) with two system (and implement the necessary duplicate infrastructure and retraining). The cost of adopting ODF will likely be too high. If Y2K has taught us anything is that even when a clear problem is know, people won't do anything about it until the last minute unless it threatens to shut down the company.

ODF is a fantastic concept that will save you a lot of money and give you a lot of freedom and flexibility in the future. If there is no at least moderate fidelity legacy format to ODF conversion, sticking with OOXML or other legacy formats gives managers a whole lot less (company) political and (transition cost, legacy duplication) financially a whole lot less grief *in the present* (where bonuses are decided).

If, OTOH, there is a moderate fidelity legacy format to ODF conversion available for all popular legacy formats, the world open up to you. You can get rid of hundreds of incompatible systems and formats and have a more uniform system that is free from vendor lock-in. Managers can save *a lot* of money, especially since they no longer have to worry about being held hostage to one vendor that charges them whatever they can get away with and they don't have to support multiple incompatible systems.

Guys, instead of holding up your hands, start calling your national standard bodies and bug them as most as you can with embarrassing questions. Lobby your congressmen. Lobby your EU Parliament representatives. Lobby your government, president, king, emperor, sultan, dictator, tsar, wharever. Talk to the media. Many of you should have academic connections. Lobby them too.

This outrageous corruption won't stand if it's exposed in public. All this secrecy will only work on MS favor.

Call your country's delegation and ask them why they allow to become Microsoft puppets:
http://www.noooxml.org/brm